Our school website

[Ayaz]

Hi all,

 

I have created a website for our school. It just uses straight html and css, not cms just yet as Im getting my head around Joomla atm. Can people just have a browse of the site and tell me what they think, good or bad? I hope to put an RSS feed of kids podcasts soon.

 

Sheldon Heath Community Arts College - Welcome

[Hightower]

Bit plain

[rush_tech]

Too much white space, in header and between header and page content. Maybe some gradient colours instead of solid red. I hope its constructive still a good effort:)

[Hightower]

Yeah sorry. I was a bit quick there. Had to go and do something so just hit reply.

 

My constructive advice would be to do something with the navigation - make it interactive so when the user hovers on it it changes colour. I know you have done it with some of the menu's but not all.

 

As Rush_tech says - too much white space also.

[Ayaz]

I had the same thoughts as you guys, but thats how the Head wants it apparently, due to all our literature and letter heads looking like this. As the site is new it is a bit sparse I agree, over time when more conternt is added it should look fuller. The whitespace as I said is the way the Head wants the "look". Any other features you think could go on? Maybe a google search box (once we get indexed of course - i have submitted our url and sitemap to goolge but apparently it can take 3 months to be indexed - Windows live had our site on their search pages within 2 days surprisingly).

[Hightower]

Could you not explain to the head that you know more about the look of websites than he does (put it in a nice way) and at the minute it doesn't look user friendly.

 

Design him a brilliant new dazzling site and then tell him he can change the letterheads to suit if he feels so strongly

[ninjabeaver]

Mr. Andrews on the Sheldon Heath Community Arts College - 6th Form College looks like he is holding a Van de Graf machine and been offered free cake for a year, made me smile loads that piccy.

 

I personally like the clean layout of the site. Looks really nice IMO. It will only get better. Keep it upto date though.

 

I also found it easy to navigate. Grats.

 

I'm currently getting my head around Joomla to replace our schools website. Got the beginners book thing printed out here to read tonight.

[ninjabeaver]

Could you not explain to the head that you know more about the look of websites than he does (put it in a nice way) and at the minute it doesn't look user friendly.

 

Design him a brilliant new dazzling site and then tell him he can change the letterheads to suit if he feels so strongly

 

I think the site at the mo is just for an online presence while the Joomla site gets sorted. So using Joomla will do that for the head.

[tech_guy]

I like it! Clean and nicely laid out.

[Ayaz]

Thanks for the comments. I've implemented the changing colour thing for the menu's on the navi. Perosnally I like "clean cut" websites rather than cluttered ones. Anymore suggestions/comments please let me know.

[laserblazer]

I like nice clean looking websites. The only thing I noticed in my brief scan was a lack of image tags. I got slated when I produced our website without them.

[ninjabeaver]

I like nice clean looking websites. The only thing I noticed in my brief scan was a lack of image tags. I got slated when I produced our website without them.

 

Yeah, you need those tags for perons with vision difficulties. I think theres a section on that on the World Wide Web Consortium - Web Standards .

[Ayaz]

do you mean for the banners on the right hand side or the other images on the site like the staff pics? the reason I havent added them to the code is that I think it makes the site look ungainly when you hover over a pic this little tag comes up. I hadnt really thought about the visually impaired side of things.

[beeswax]

Nice and simple site, nothing wrong with all the white space, it doesn't look cluttered. Navigation is straightforward. Your head's right about the "branding", i.e. getting everything to have the same general feel. People know where they are then. It also looks professional. You could improve it by transferring it to a cms, making your job easier eventually. Keep it up. Excellent.

[localzuk]

Very nice site, clean and clear. Gradients are generally ugly on sites, and removing the white space will make it look cluttered.

[Guest Guest]

Nice and simple, good stuff.

 

Id move the banner up an inch to get rid of that white space and maybe experiment on the background or main body with very neutral pale colours or an off-white to see what that looks like

[FN-GM]

Everyone else has pretty much said my thoughts although i think another picture of your head be better. He looks a little mean on the current one.

[Ayaz]

lol yeah he does but he is a cracking bloke I must say. thanks again for the comments. I am going to put an rss feed to the bbc education news site but I have a question? Should I put the rss feed on every page so teachers can click it where ever they are, or shall I put it only on the home page, or only on the links page?

[chrbb]

I like it - looks a professionally designed site, nice and clean. Is the layout design yours or did you use a template or is it just notepad?

[bossman]

Very good, clean good use of white space, like the calendar showing all the events. The photographic sharpness of the pictures in the right hand sidebar are quite professional in all a very pleasant site to look at well done!

[webman]

I agree. I like it very much - good job

[torledo]

Ayaz

 

Great effort, like the decluttering and ease of navigation.

 

I personally am not sure about white text on such a strong red perhaps unbold the white font....

i totally understand the corporate branding and your head is to an extent correct....but i think a lighter shade of red would be nicer on the eye. Something like the pale red you see on part of the arts council logo. A red gradient on the red bars on the banner and footer of the page could look good...or go for the lighter shade of red, and have perhaps some navigation text in the red banner.

 

Have a play around with some of the font colours and sizes and colours of the site but in essense the layout of the site doesn't need much work at all. You could perhaps shorten the pages to remove some of the white space....

i don't think that would clutter it. Don't be tempted to try and fill that white space with extraneous info as that would definitely clutter it.

 

The 'A specialist arts college' line could possibly be moved up fractionally closer to the school name, possibly inline with the bottom of the logos. You wouldn't have to do that if you made that solid red bar more interesting visually, as i said either play around with some navigation text in there or create a subtle gradient.

 

My only issue is that because it's on a white background it is a bit 2-tone (i.e white background, bold black and deep red makes it visually a bit 2-tone and harsh). Hope i'm making some sense, but obviously it's just an opinion.

 

Good job though.

[plexer]

I like the site very clean and uncluttered as has been said.

 

The very white background does make it very bright maybe a change of bg colour to an off white or pastel shade?

 

Ben

[budgester]

The best thing you can do is learn either drupal, joomla or another cms as quickly as you can, other wise you'll get stuck with an out of date website or constantly bothered by people asking you to update this or that.

 

As an example our website uses Drupal, Chace Community School | Commitment to Learning High Expectations All can succeed Confidence and Courage Everyone valued equally

 

The head teacher updates the site with a single paragraph and an image at least once a week, and a couple of other members of staff have areas of responsibilty, e.g HR for the vacancies etc.

 

My involvement is now really minimal, and we have constantly updated content.

[budgester]

Oh the other thing that will encourage people to help you out is if you provide stats to the pages people visit.

 

Drupal and Joomla should both do this, and it allows you to focus on the areas of the site that people actually visit and cull the rubbish.